


above the snowline

by Perfunctorily



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bran Stark is King in the North, Gen, Jon never takes the black, Mentions of alcoholism, six years later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2019-11-13 01:03:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18021890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Perfunctorily/pseuds/Perfunctorily
Summary: In which, six years after the secession of the North from the Seven Kingdoms and the onset of a harsh and merciless winter, Brandon Stark, the young King in the North sends his mother and bastard older brother to arbitrate some minor conflict between the newly settled Free Folk who have taken up residence in the Gift and the other peoples of the North, some Ironborn seek assistance with their uncle troubles, some wargs run amok, and everyone has a generally unpleasant time in the snow.





	1. Chapter 1

“Jon’s back,” Bran said, not looking up from his book. He put down the spindle he’d been twirling while he read. “He’s killed something.”

Cat looked up from her weaving just as a guardsman cried out the arrival of a rider. She’d long ago stopped questioning how Bran knew little things like that before it was possible. She looked out the window to see that yes, indeed, the bastard of Winterfell, first sworn sword of the King in the North, the white wolf of the Kingsroad, terror of bandits and brigands across the realm, and half brother to her children, had ridden through the gates with something large and furry draped over the back of his horse.

If it were up to her, she’d let it by with no mention at all. Jon Snow was free to come and go as he pleased, and he very often did. He gave no word of his movements, and sometimes left for more than a moon’s turn at a time, only then to come and go thrice in a fortnight. But Bran was already out the door of the chamber, half-finished skein of yarn left upon the open book.

Catelyn  sighed and stood up from the loom to follow the king. The room they were in was on the first floor. Only a quick roll down the hallway and the long shallow ramp which replaced what had once been two steps up into the Great Keep had them trudging through the shallow snow of the windswept courtyard.

She pushed Bran’s rolling chair from behind, though a servant would have done it if she called for one, out toward the gatehouse. Jon covered more ground than they, and reined up his stallion more than halfway across the yard. The great white wolf loped in behind him. Huge puffs of breath wafted up from man, horse, and wolf alike.

Bran waved, grinning.

Panting and the crunch of snow under heavy paws heralded Summer’s arrival from out of the Godswood. He bowled into Ghost, and the two of them tumbled head over heels into a drift. Summer, slightly the smaller of the two, made enough noise for both direwolves, whining and growling and huffing his delight to be reunited with his pale brother.

Snow himself was dour faced and inscrutable as ever, he swung down from his saddle and grabbed whatever it was he’d killed this time. A heap of grey-black striped fur landed with a muffled _whump_ in in the snow at Catelyn’s feet. It was a shadowcat.

She regarded it coolly, and looked back up at Snow without comment. He met her gaze for a searching moment, then turned to Bran with a smile. “Your grace, the infamous thief of half the shepherds between here and the Hornwood.”

"Oh well done. There have been no end of complaints." The king smiled up at his bastard brother. "It's good to have you back, Jon." 

Summer emerged from his wrestling match and, shaking himself off, sniffed the dead cat which was almost as large as he was. Ghost laid his big white head in the king’s lap to be petted. Bran obliged, though the beast had snow all crusted in the mane of fur at its neck and chest. His attention was more on the carcass, his brow slightly furrowed.

“Strange. Mother, I had thought shadowcats lived in the mountains?"

“They do. I’ve never heard of one so bold as to trouble farmers on flat ground, nor this far from any high place to make a lair.”

“Nor to travel in packs,” Snow added. “Strange times. There were more of them. Would that I’d had a cart to carry six back with me. Perhaps the winter brought them down from the mountains.” He crouched and grabbed the scruff of its neck to rear its striped head up at them, the wound that had killed it –a slash across the throat– gaped, crystals of frozen blood glistening against its dark fur. “Either way, it will poach no more sheep. Would you like it for a cloak, my lady?”

She eyed the long fluffy tail, it would be very comfortable, luxurious, far softer than a wolf’s pelt, and warmer than rabbit fur. “Bran could use another blanket.”

Jon gave her that look again, his long, solemn face so like Ned’s had been at twenty. Though, mercifully, Snow never wore a beard, and looked more to her like Benjen. He did not ask again, but simply heaved the creature up onto his shoulder with a grunt of effort. Grabbing the reins of his horse, he whistled for Ghost as he walked away toward the stables.  

Ghost jumped up from licking Bran’s fingers and trotted easily after his master. The grey wolf followed him, leaving Catelyn alone with her son.

“You could take a gift from him every now and then,” Bran said, his eyes trailed after the bastard and the wolves.

She pressed her lips to a hard line. “You need to keep warm. There’s always the–“

“Alway the risk of frostbite. I can’t feel my feet or move them to keep the blood flowing so I must be careful of my toes,” he finished for her, eyes rolling, sounding every bit the lad of thirteen that he was, and not at all the King in the North. “I have blankets enough to make a tent the size of the great hall. Jon’s pelts alone could cover the sept. You might at least accept one of them.”

She bit her tongue. She'd taken one gift from the bastard, and thanked him for it. And he'd never let her forget it. “You should give him a holdfast,” she said instead, something suggested every few months since Snow had come of age, “something better to do than ride around hunting monsters.”

Bran smiled at that, one of his cryptic, far-eyed smiles that unnerved her so. “I have something in mind for him to do.”

She did not like the sound of that at all.

 

 

* * *

 

It was night outside the window of Bran’s first floor office. Catelyn and he both watched Jon Snow as he stood close by the fire to read the letter by its light. Its flickering lit him from behind, made him the glowing ghost of her husband. His shadow played across the spools and skeins that Bran had spun to keep his hands occupied, and left piled on his desk.

The room was not so grand as Ned’s old solar upstairs, but it was spacious enough for small council meetings, well lit during the day, and warm during the night. It served.

Summer dozed in his customary corner, curled upon a bear’s pelt, one Snow had left on the landing outside Catelyn’s bedroom more than five years ago. It was hardly recognizable, having been removed from the animal and tanned inexpertly, now more shed wolf fur than bear.

Snow’s eyes darted across the lines on the parchment, his lips not moving as he read.

Catelyn had more than a few misgivings about Bran bringing the bastard into this, but held her tongue. Bran was wise beyond his years, and his notions were rarely foolish ones. She’d learned that well in the years as queen dowager, in essence, though she’d never taken on the title.

“Do you think it’s some kind of Wildling trick?” Snow asked, once he’d read the whole of it.

“They’re Giftfolk now,” Bran corrected him.

“Do you think the Giftfolk want to lure you up into the frozen wilderness under the wall and murder you?” he said, deadpan, only the barest glint of humor in his eyes betrayed his serious tone.

“No, it’s sincere,” Bran said with concrete assurance. “Rayder wants to treat. And I want you to escort mother to the Gift to do it.”

Snow, openly dismayed, gaped at his half-brother, all the humor gone from his face. Cat was speechless too. She and Bran had spoken of her taking on the role of envoy to the Free Folk, but she had not dreamed he’d send Snow as her honor guard.

She recovered herself first. “Bran, surely there are other men, more suited,” she heard the bastard scoff, but drove onward, “a bannerman would send a message of goodwill to Mance Rayder. He’ll know we’re taking him seriously as a force in the kingdom. Send Cley Cerwyn, or a Wull with me.”

“It has to be Jon,” he said placidly.

“Send Tommen, as a signal of our equality and independence from the throne.”

“He’s _twelve,_ and he has to stay here, for Rickon’s sake. It will be too cold for him besides.”

“Ser Roderik. One of the guardsmen.”

“Mother,” he sounded almost chiding. “I’m sending thirty guardsmen with you. But I need Ser Roderik here with me to command the rest of them.” Cat found herself half cowed by his voice. When had he become so lordly?

“If I may,” Snow interjected from where he’d been standing, near forgotten by the fireplace, “I don’t think I’m the best man for this job either.”

“I’m not asking.” The steel remained in Bran’s voice, and Snow’s gaze dropped instantly to his feet, ever obedient.

Catelyn drew herself up to her full height. “Find another captain of the guard, Brandon. I will have ser Roderik.” A harshness found its way into her voice that she could not suppress. 

Summer stirred in his corner.

Bran gripped the arm rests of his chair, not flinching from her, Catelyn saw his knuckles grow pale. “I’m sending Jon with you and that’s the end of it! I’m King in the North and I can’t go myself, so I’m commanding you to go in my place, and him to protect you.” Cat was suddenly very aware that, if he could stand, he would be almost as tall as she was. “I’ll not hear arguments from either of you!”

A light footstep behind her, she twisted, ready to turn her anger on the bastard. But she found herself looking down at him. He’d sunk to one knee. She thought he might take her hand, but he was not so bold as to touch her. Never that bold.

“Your grace, Queen Catelyn.” She did not soften her gaze as he spoke, using titles she did not rightly possess. “If my king commands it, I will follow and defend you with my life and more if it is possible.” He looked up at her with Ned’s grey eyes, the same look he gave her every time he dropped a trophy at her feet. Searching. Hoping for something.

She looked to Bran, back to Snow, found herself outnumbered and defeated, and stormed from the room.

 

* * *

 

She found Bran in the glass gardens. A lemon tree, growing ever taller and claiming more dominion over the sunny air of the shimmering vault dappled him in the morning's pale light and shadow. He was tending to his small crop of re-planted weirwood cuttings. Another way to occupy his hands that he’d picked up.

“Bran?”

The King in the North started, pulled his hand back sharply from the white sapling, and looked around at her, with the sheepish look of a little boy caught with his finger in a pie.

Childish looks did not become his face much anymore though. Once, she’d feared that he’d grow to look like Robb. And that would be too painful for her to bear. But his face was fine and delicate, getting long, like Ned and Arya, now that the roundness of youth had begun to give way to maturity. His Tully cheekbones lent him a nobility that he’d been neglected by the lack of Robb’s square chin.

“Good morning.” He smiled. She let herself breathe a sigh of relief, he was not still angry with her.

Her shoes scuffed in a bit of earth that had fallen from the raised beds they’d had installed in Bran’s section of the gardens. She’d have to have a servant in to sweep the slate paths later on, it wouldn’t do to let them start accumulating debris, the whole point was that the king’s chair could roll easily and smoothly between the long narrow beds so Bran could tend his plants without assistance.

“I’m sorry,” he said, before she could comment on the health of his little trees, or think of some excuse to make up for her behavior the night before. “It isn’t fair of me, to either of you.”

“Sweetling...” She took his hand. It was strong and calloused, the hand of a smith, or a carpenter, or a spinster, it did not match his slight frame or his sweet face.

“No, it’s true. It’s cruel to send you together. And I shouldn’t have yelled at you, or commanded Jon like that.”

“You’re the king. Commanding is what you’re meant to do.” Her throat felt tight, she’d had a similar conversation with Robb, soon after he was crowned, when he’d sent her back to Winterfell.

Bran looked up at her, eyes shining. “That doesn’t make it fair. It’s just like Father, or Robb, or grandfather, or _your_ father. Telling you to go do this or marry him, give this up, and put up with that,” his voice trembled, “it isn’t fair that everyone’s always telling you what to do. And I’m just like them.”

It seemed that catelyn was cursed to be left speechless more and more often by her son. He was saying things she had no way to respond to, that there was no way he could understand or know about. All she could think was _Family, Duty, Honor_ and the hard, cold look in Ned’s eyes – a stranger still, not yet a year wed, only weeks since she’d arrived to find another woman’s child in the nursery – when he’d told her that she would simply have to bear it, and to never ask him about Jon again. It had been the same look her father had furnished her and Lysa both with when he told them whom they would have to wed in the wake of Brandon’s death.

Bran let go her hand, looked at his weirwood saplings, took a breath. He blinked hard, as if banishing sudden tears.

“I wouldn’t ask it if I didn’t think it was what had to be done. But you’re the nearest thing to going myself. Better, really. The Giftfolk probably wouldn’t listen to a crippled boy, or anyone else besides you. They won’t listen if it’s only you though, or you and just anyone. Jon has Ghost. They’ll listen with him there. It has to be the two of you together.”

She thought of legends Old Nan liked to tell the children of the creatures from beyond the wall, and how sometimes she’d cross paths with Summer in the night, and he would look at her with uncanny intelligence behind his eyes. She did not question why Jon Snow’s direwolf was important to negotiating with the free folk.

Bran continued, “Just, if you must be angry, be angry with me for sending him, not Jon for being sent.”

She forced a smile. “I could never be angry with you. Of course I’ll do what has to be done. So much rests on making the Giftfolk a place in our kingdom.”

He did not seem comforted, but offered a forced smile of his own. “Oh, mother. There’s one other important thing, I’ve only just found out.”

She knew no ravens had arrived during the night to bring any news. She’d long ago given up on asking Bran where he got his information. He was inscrutable, her boy, her king.

He’d come into the world with a membrane over his face. Luwin had agreed with Ned that it meant nothing, a harmless fluke of the birthing bed. Some children were simply born with cauls. Greensight was a legend, a magic gone from the world with the children of the forest. But Cat could never quite banish it from her thoughts.

“Yes?” she said.

He fixed her with his blue eyes, looking through her, through the glass of the gardens and the walls of the castle, far into the distance.

“There will be krakens flying over the Gift when you arrive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The plans for king Brandon's rolling chair were sent to Winterfell by the lady Sansa Stark upon arriving at the Water Gardens and subsequently observing a similar contraption utilized by Doran Martell, prince of Dorne, during her brief visit there some four years past. 
> 
> -Excerpt from the Treatise on the Renovations to Winterfell Castle in the New Century by Maester Luwin at Winterfell


	2. Chapter 2

Theon hated snow. He hated how it hurt his eyes when the sun shone on it, how it blew in his face, how it caught in his cloak and melted down the back of his neck. It would figure that he’d be back in the North and toddling through great drifts of it so soon. The bear-paws were not as great a help as he might have hoped. There was a trick to walking in them that he could not seem to master, and they got his feet stuck in the snow as much as they ever helped to walk atop it.

He was even further north now than he’d ever had to go when he was a ward of the Starks. He’d been to Last Hearth once or twice, but it had been high summer then, and there’d only been light shallow snows, sometimes none at all. Now it was the dead of the longest winter in thirty years, that might yet prove to be the longest in a hundred. And he could see the fucking wall if he squinted. They’d had to anchor their ships two miles out in the Bay of Ice and _walk_ to shore.

It was snowing on the iron islands too. But at least the sea had the propriety to stay wet that far south.

The wildlings around them jabbered and jostled. One blew a horn from halfway up a steep hillside, a long, sweet note that told of riders approaching from the south.

He rubbed his gloved hands together and tried to blow hot air on them, to little avail. Asha stood beside him, looking perfectly at ease with her short hair wind-tossed and rakish. He knew very well that she was as frigid and miserable as he, but she’d committed herself to showing him up by pretending not to mind the snow, or the cold.

His and Asha’s Kraken banner snapped and billowed in the icy wind atop their own hill. It was the only banner; wildlings didn’t fly flags, and only few of them even painted sigils on their shields.

His sister nudged him in the arm with her elbow “There,” she said, pointing.

“I see them,” he muttered back.

There, from the southeast, between two foothills, just barely visible between the white of the snow capped trees and the white of the sky, the white of the Stark banner came into view. A grey direwolf pranced and sprinted toward them on the cloth, but none could be found on the ground, even as all of the horses came trotting out of the pass. It would appear that the King in the North had not hazarded the journey.

“Never thought I’d see Starks again,” Asha murmured “Sixteen years since a direwolf flew over Pyke.”

“And it went so well the last last time,” It was too late to change their minds now anyway, but he thought he’d remind her. Last time a Westerosi army had set foot on the Iron Islands, their brothers had died and he’d been taken to hostage for ten years.

“Worry not, little brother, this time you’re much too large to be carried off in a sack.”

He just glowered. He wished he was still drinking. This was not going how he’d planned it to.

When they’d gotten to the settlement in the Gift, he’d been dismayed to find that Rayder expected the king, but Asha’s eyes had lit up. She had plans and schemes in that head of hers. Never mind that it had been _his_ idea to come to the wildlings for help in the first place.

The column of riders was of middling size, two score and ten, or perhaps as many as sixty. The Stark banner, followed by the giant of Umber, and a few smaller banners of mountain clans, of which Theon recognized only Flint and Norrey.

The Northern contingent traveled quickly, though the snow was deep, sure footed, stout mountain horses rather than more noble southern breeds beneath them. Soon they were well inside the valley and beginning to dismount. A stormfront of clouds dogged their heels. The settlement was well placed, in the lee of one of the mountains, and protected on all sides by smaller foothills. Autumn storms were well behind them, but every man of the people of the Gift he saw eyed the sky warily.

Mance Rayder, at the foot of the hill they were standing on, walked forward to make his introductions. Theon and Asha stood well back and up with their Ironmen. There was the implicit truce of a peaceful meeting, but it would serve them better to be cautious. There was no love lost between the Iron Islands and the mainland these six years past. No Northern fleet had sailed to punish them for their own little secession, nor their return to reaving along the stony shore. Doubtless all forces had been fully occupied with keeping the Neck closed off and defending their ports from southron attacks by sea, and then by winter’s quick and punishing arrival to think of sailing on Pyke. But ill feeling did not fade quickly in the North, and he doubted they were any more pleased to see kraken banners than he was to see direwolves.

He walked off a bit on his own, wanting to get a closer look. Asha called after him to not get lost and he responded with a rude gesture. She didn’t get to order him around just yet. That happened later, if this went as they hoped, which wasn’t bloody likely.

He made his way along the ridge of the hill, toes catching with every step, toward the tail of the column. Some of the men, he could see when he got close enough, were guards from Winterfell that he even recognized. In their midst, to his mild surprise was lady Catelyn herself. Past forty now, most like, but as noble looking as ever. He couldn’t help but wonder how she’d been keeping, running the North with Bran as king.

He couldn’t picture Bran as anything but the broken little boy he’d last seen before they’d ridden south, or lady Stark as the grieving widow and mother. How she’d managed to hold the kingdom together boggled the mind.

Inexorably, his thoughts turned to Eddard Stark. His last glimpse of the man as he rode for king’s landing, never to return. His last view of Robb had been much the same, the Northern column turning south from Riverrun as he made for Seagard.

He turned his eye quickly away, over to the Umbers. If he wasn’t mistaken, the man at the head was one of the uncles, he was a tall man, thin, and greying, but steady atop his mount.

Had to be Whoresbane. Theon couldn’t recall either of their proper names, but only Whoresbane would come to treat. Crowfood hated wildlings, Theon remembered that much because he used to scare Arya and Sansa with stories about how they’d carried off Crowfood Umber’s daughter in the night.

Approaching footsteps brought his gaze back to the Stark men, one of whom was coming up the hill towards him. Running, really. Struggling through the snow as he had not had time to fix bear-paws to his feet after dismounting. The man was wearing a scarf and cap under his cloak so his face was difficult to make out as he approached, but there was something familiar about him.

Theon only really had time to register that the coat of arms on his chest was the inverse of the banner, a white wolf racing on a grey field, before Jon Snow arrived in a rush of fury and punched him full in the face.

* * *

 

He had been cleaning the nails of his left hand extraneously for the better part of an hour. Partly to keep himself occupied while the Northmen and Mance Rayder argued, mostly to keep himself from touching his face.

The argument was circular, and no amount of shepherding from lady Stark seemed to be able to keep it from looping back to the same points again and again, keeping them sat in the increasingly stuffy room for another interminable round of bickering.

He’d removed even the barest trace of dirt, and begun picking at his cuticles with his knife. The Norrey had accused the wildlings of everything short of laying siege to his keep and raping his daughters, and Mance Rayder had held firm in both his demands and his denial of any crimes.

The debate raged for long hours. Perhaps three. It might have come to blows several times thus far if bread and salt had not been broken first thing. Night, and the storm were swiftly drawing in. All in attendance were worn down. Theon not the least because of his ringing headache.

The medicine man, back down in his hut on the valley floor, had not been able to speak Westerosi. But, after looking in both of his eyes and poking painfully at his face, he explained, through a mixture of hand gestures and words of the Old Tongue that Theon’s nose was not broken, and that he’d be no worse for wear after the bruising cleared up.

That didn’t do much to improve his mood, or help him to keep from accidentally poking at it when it slipped his mind.

They were quite a ways up the leeward mountain face, away from the lean-tos, longhouses and tents of the wildling settlement below. There was a crude path hewn into the cliffside, with the occasional stair chiseled out to make the climb easier.

The cave was natural and deep. The inside was furnished well enough, it seemed Rayder often held meetings here, and perhaps lived in it as well. Pelts and cloth hangings divided it into rooms of sorts. They sat in the outermost, the snowy world and valley below visible behind a half-drawn curtain at the mouth. Cookfires and torches glimmered like stars through the falling snow.

Jon Snow could also be seen, every time his pacing brought him in view of the opening. For his part, Snow had required three people holding him back, and Asha’s blade between them to stop him trying to kill Theon with his bare hands. Now, after it had been made quite clear that both the Northerners and Ironborn had guestright in the valley, he restrained himself to fingering the grip of his sword and shooting murderous looks at Theon every chance he got.

At one end of the room sat Umber and Flint, Norrey, and three other odd clan chieftains, Theon and Asha a little ways to the side, and then Mance Rayder on the other end. Lady Catelyn sat opposite the Ironborn.

As Whoresbane umber began to, once again, recount down to the last ewe how many sheep had been lost from his shepherds’ flocks, Asha leaned close and whispered to Theon, smirking. “Remind me again, why he wants you dead?”

Jon Snow was glaring at him again.

“He thinks I betrayed Robb Stark.”

“Did you?”  
  
He grimaced. “I kept my promises.” An old wound, long picked at, long scarred over, never healed, prickled deep in his chest.

Asha looked out at the bastard where he paced. “He doesn’t seem to think so.”

“He’s a stubborn git and a bastard besides. Who cares what he thinks?”

“You keeping your pretty face intact, I would wager.”

“If I cared about keeping my dashing good looks, I wouldn’t have spat blood at him and asked if he missed me,” he hissed. Snow’s fine grey wool was also spattered with Theon’s blood. But it wasn’t much consolation. Theon's best jerkin was thoroughly stained. Good clothing could be got easily in Winterfell. Pyke was a different story.

“Lord Greyjoy, if you will,” lady Stark said sharply.

A long forgotten reflex reached deep into him and yanked his back straight like a puppet string. Drowned god, but he’d forgotten how much she’d scared him as a boy. It seemed he’d forgotten quite a bit over the past few years. Too much wine. He immediately wanted a drink after thinking it.

Her look was no friendlier than that of the bastard who followed her, though she did refrain from physically attacking him. He supposed he deserved it.

Rayder looked at him sardonically. “As I was saying.”

Mance Rayder was a thin man who was not like to see this side of fifty again, his long hair was all but entirely grey. But he remained steady and firm, perched lightly on his seat. He’d been a king of sorts, beyond the wall, if Theon heard correctly, and a man of the watch before that. Once, Theon had watched lord Eddard Stark take the head from a night’s watch deserter. Now his widow sat and treated with one.

“Bandits and thieves are as much a plague of your people as mine.” he continued, for perhaps the fifth time “Can you say that any brigand on the road is of the free folk or of the kingdom? I’ve never known a thief to fly a banner and announce himself.”

The Flint spat on the floor. “Lies and dissembling! Even our goats dwindle. No common bandits climb mountain paths to pick off goats.”

Lady Stark looked on calmly, “The fact remains, thievery and poaching has increased beyond precedent. Even taking the winter into account. We have granted you a place south of the wall, and peace, Your people must at the very least refrain from thievery and encroaching on the lands of our bannermen.”

“Even if I could order them to stop. I would not. My people starve. If they steal, they take but little, and it is all that feeds them. All I ask is food, or simply leave to hunt further south.”

“Then pay taxes. The king is more than willing to supply his subjects but if you do not pay him homage he cannot call you his, nor feed you of his larder.” Lady Stark gave no sign of sympathy for the wildling plight. Theon couldn’t help but be a bit impressed by her. She’d been formidable before, but she’d grown hard in her bereavement and her reign as queen in all but name. She seemed taller, the lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes only lent her a sternness that could not be denied.

“With what coin?” Mance asked, “The Giftfolk offer pelts, meat, finely crafted goods, But none will do business. When they venture into your lands to trade, they are turned back with sword and arrow. When they settle on plains or woods to farm, even well within the borders of the New Gift they are run off. I say again, my people starve.”

“All men go hungry in winter,” growled the Norrey

“Your people thieve and poach!” said another, perhaps a Liddle

Lady Catelyn silenced them all with an icy glance, which she turned back to Rayder. ““You cannot reside within the kingdom if you will not abide its laws.”

“The Free Folk understood what it meant to come south of the wall, but their ways are not the same as yours, my lady.” There was a moment’s pause. Theon watched Rayder’s eyes flit to the cave mouth before he continued, “Bended knees chafe those that were not born to kneeling.”

Theon followed his gaze to see that at some point, though he could not have said exactly when, a massive white direwolf had appeared at Jon Snow’s side, seemingly out of thin air and snowy wind. Of course, Theon should have known the bastard would not go far from his beast. What had he named the thing? Shade? It never made a sound, and had apparently grown to the formidable size of a large pony.

Snow stood in full view, chatting with the other guard who was sat in the snow outside. He’d taken off his cap to reveal his dark brown hair grown long. He looked like Ned Stark the very day he’d taken Theon from Pyke, if he shaved and had perhaps been two inches taller.

The wolf seemed to captivate Rayder as much as it worried Theon.

“Then learn to soothe their chafing.” Lady Stark took no notice of their host’s distraction.

He turned back to her, looking tired. “Perhaps we should adjourn this meeting for today. The weather does not look to be improving, and doubtless my lords would prefer to spend the night with their men in the valley.”

Grumbling and muttering abounded, but they all seemed to agree. None wanted to be caught in a blizzard up here, together, without their guardsmen. United against the wildlings they might be, but each mountain clan had a history of quarrelsome relations with their neighbors that stretched centuries before the conquest.

Asha made a sound of protest. Three long hours of debate and not once had they had a chance to make their case. Theon stayed her with a hand held out. This was exactly what they needed.

He stepped forward, intercepting Rayder on his way to the entrance. “My lord Rayder, a moment.”

Mance turned thoughtful brown eyes on him. “Call me Mance, lord Greyjoy, I am not one of your number.”

Theon gave a reflexive grin. Technically, he was a prince. But now was not the time to go correcting his host. “Mance then. Might my sister and I have a word with you? We came here with business, and the lords and clansmen of the North seem to have left no time to discuss it between quibbling over sheep.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Very well. Will you dine with us? I have invited lady Stark to take a meal with my household, there is enough for two more.”

Theon shot a look back at Asha as if to say, _see!_ patience paid off in greenlander diplomacy as much as audacity and gruff directness. One had to wait their proper turn to speak.

Of the many things he’d learned since his return to Pyke, patience was certainly the most useful. He’d sat six long years languishing under his father’s disdainful eye. He practically fucking _breathed_ patience.

 

* * *

 

The floor of the valley could no longer be seen through the driven snow from where he looked down on it, but true to his guess, the bulk of the mountain behind them shielded them from the worst of the storm. The wind howled, but did not threaten to tear them from its face. Mance had chosen his position well. Protected on all sides from weather and attack. Shame he didn’t seem to be doing any ruling from his seat of power.

The king beyond the wall, or whatever he was calling himself now, was squatting in the snow, cautiously laying his hand on Jon Snow’s wolf’s big head.

“And he obeys as well as a dog?”

“Better,” Snow preened. “Ghost, sit.” The wolf gave his master a look that could only be described as patronizing, but he sat, and pressed his muzzle into Rayder’s hand for good measure. Theon held back a snicker.

“Very interesting.” Rayder stood. “You interest me, Jon Snow.”

That got a look of surprise from the bastard. He stamped his bear-paws clear of snow, looking at them rather than meeting Rayder's eyes, a gesture of boyish shyness that was alien on him. “I– Had not realized my lady gave you my name.”

Rayder smiled, “She didn’t. But i’ve seen you before. And tales of the white wolf of Winterfell reach my ears even this far north.” He tousled the fur atop Ghost’s head with a sly smile. “What befalls the bandits of the Kingsroad is of special interest to me. Your name is attached to many a head that’s been separated from its shoulders” Snow looked baffled, if flattered.

“Tell me, Jon Snow. White Wolf. Do you know what a warg is?”

Snow stammered.

Rayder grinned. “Think on it. I’ll ask you again on the morrow.” He glanced back to where lady Stark stood stiff and expectant by the mouth of the cave. “Will you join us for supper?”

Snow looked to his lady, calculating. He shook his head. “I am an honor guard, not a guest of her ladyship.”

Theon squinted and looked between the two. Their relation was strange. It had never quite occurred to Theon that when lady Stark returned to Winterfell, it was not just to Bran and Rickon, but to the half brother Robb had left as their protector as well.

One had to wonder what had gone on. Their particular stalemate had grown only more tangled after Snow had killed the man who had been sent after Bran. But Theon had had a headfull of princely ambition and little thought to spare for either of them. And it had all gone so quickly after that.

Rayder clapped Snow on the shoulder, laughing. “I’ll have something brought out to you then. Feel free to stay inside, it’s going to be a cold night”

A small smile from Snow. “I’ve spent more than a few nights out in the cold, my lord.”

“Call me Mance. I’m not a lord.”

Once Rayder had ducked back in behind the pelts hanging in the mouth of the cave, taking lady Catelyn with him, Theon sidled up to Snow, keeping his eyes on the wolf. The wolf stared right back, eyes like bloody pits, accusing.

“How’s Bran?” he asked, a peace offering.

Absently, still smiling, “good, he uses a rolling chair now to–,” then he seemed to catch himself, realizing who he was speaking to. His face hardened. “How the king fares is no business of yours, Greyjoy.”

Theon put his hands up, placating, and backed into the cave. He shivered. Snow had grown into his father’s frigid gaze. Those grey eyes could cut as deep as any sword. His face throbbed where it had been punched.

 

* * *

 

It was not much of a meal. Rayder had not been lying when he said they were starving. Some fish: salted, some mutton: smoked, a few neeps and some winter cabbage in a stew. Lady Stark had a bird, perhaps a ptarmigan.

There was a woman there, Val, Rayder introduced her as his good-sister, and a boy of four or five who could only have been his son. The boy climbed into his father’s lap without regard for their noble company.

There was wine and ale, despite the meagre food. Lady Stark took wine. She eyed the skin, but did not question where Rayder might have gotten it. Asha took ale. Theon had water.

“No wine?” Mance Rayder asked, as Theon reached for a fish.

“I recall you were fond of such once.” Lady Catelyn had often scolded him for his drinking, in his youth. Genuine puzzlement was on her face.

“My brother has found the Drowned God,” Asha said, half teasing, half giving him an excuse, “He drinks naught but seawater and eats only sand.”

They didn’t laugh, of course, they did not know Aeron, and couldn’t get the joke. Theon took the fish on the end of his knife, put it on his plate, then worked the glove off of his right hand.

He grinned, holding his hand up to be seen in the firelight. The last two fingers were severed at the first knuckle. “I drank too much and played the finger dance too poorly. I’d rather keep my skill with a bow, and not lose any more.”

He left it at that, pulling the glove back on. Lady Catelyn certainly didn’t have to know how far into his cups he’d crawled, until he’d lost the fingers. Even then, it had taken Balon keeling over in his damnable Seastone Chair for him to crawl back out again.

Asha began to explain the finger dance, which fascinated Val and the boy, but lady Stark seemed to find less than interesting. She kept her eyes suspiciously on Theon. Theon focused on his fish. It was a pale, strange creature, not of a type he’d ever eaten before. If he was not mistaken, it didn’t have any eyes, which was discomfiting, but spared him having to eat the jelly.

Eventually the discussion of how to properly leap over a throwing axe wended its way to their reasons for being there. Asha glanced his way, he nodded just slightly. She listened to him when it suited her. Damn the bitch, but she was cleverer than him, and more than clever enough to know when he was good council.

She planted her knife in the tabletop. “Now, I know it may have been quite a surprise for the lady of Winterfell to have seen our krakens this morning.”

A wry twist of the corner of lady Stark’s mouth.

“Relations between our two nations have not been warm. I fully admit to my part in this. But my brother and I have come to change that.”

“I do not forget that it was your father who denied our friendship when king Robb extended it” the lady said, coldly.

“Aye, and I do not deny that it was done ill, and he withheld his support when it was needed most. I know many good men died at Crakehall. But you must needs also recall that my father is freshly dead.”

“And your brother now sits the Seastone Chair. He is just as much the architect of that betrayal.”

That gave Asha pause. She did not know the full circumstances of his return to Pyke.

“With respect, my lady,” Theon interjected. Did they really expect him to sit by while the women talked over him, like a child at table? “I had no part in that. I sailed for Pyke with the full intention of following Robb’s orders.” It was mostly true, at least how he told himself he remembered it.

“And yet he died. Theon.” She made his name a curse.

“We didn’t come to argue fault,” Asha recovered herself and came to his rescue, “we came to ask Mance Rayder for his support against our uncle. Balon is dead, and Euron seeks to take the Driftwood Crown.”

“He’s called a Kingsmoot,” Theon put in. “It will not go well for us, or you, with the Crow’s Eye on the chair. He speaks of dragons in the east, and krakens in the deep. He does not mean to sit idly, if he should take it”

“My help?” Rayder had remained silent thus far, bouncing his son on his knee, but now he spoke up, perplexed. “A long way to come for the support of starving men with no ships.”

“We have no friends in the North, and even fewer in the South, but ships aplenty. Starving men need trade. We thought to make alliances with people hungry enough to want them.” Asha made it sound so reasonable, and he’d thought himself so audacious for coming up with it.

Lady Stark spoke with dawning understanding “But you arrived to find us on our way, and thought that old wounds might be healed.”

Asha smiled, triumphant. Theon let the beginnings of hope start sprouting.

Just then, as Mance Rayder took a breath to respond, there was a great clatter from the direction of the entrance. The tearing of cloth as the hanging separating the room where they ate from the meeting hall was ripped from its beam.

Ghost tore into the room, a whirlwind of white fur, knocking over a pile of firewood, Theon’s chair, and almost toppling the dining table itself in his hurry. His teeth snapped, jaws locked on Lady Stark’s skirts and yanked her from her seat. She stood, if only to avoid being pulled to the floor.

“Ghost? What–” She cast about, looking for Jon Snow. Outraged and confused, she tore the fabric from his teeth. “How dare you!”

The big wolf frantically nosed at her, danced around her in a circle, claws skittering on the cave floor. Then, wild eyed, grabbing her cloak, he planted his paws and tugged her toward the cave mouth. His silence was even more unnerving for how frenzied his actions were.

Only then, getting back up from the floor did Theon see the blood on the wolf’s pelt. Asha was up and beside him, knife in hand. He wished he had a sword, and not just the paltry bodkin he’d scured his fish with.

Tripping and stumbling, the lady followed the wolf out, Asha and Theon on her heels. The guard at the entrance lay dead. His blood stained the snow, but newfallen flakes were swiftly covering it. The heavy snow had turned to a whiteout. Nothing could be seen more than a few feet away. Not even the fires down in the valley winked in the gloom.

Theon crouched to look at the dead wildling. His throat had been torn out, a look of terror still on his face. Looking back, Theon saw that Ghost had no blood on his muzzle, it was all on his shoulder and ribs. This was not the wolf’s handywork.

Jon Snow was nowhere to be found.

Another huge noise, a rumbling somewhere out in the night, so loud it almost hurt his ears. The mountain shook beneath his feet. Gripping his knife, Theon edged out into the snow.

“Snow?!” he shouted, feeling silly. Terrible thing to name a bastard in a land where everything was covered with the stuff.

He heard the crunch of a foot in the snow off to his left. He whirled, there was nothing. He couldn’t even see the cave from here. He was suddenly very worried he’d misstep and go tumbling down the mountain.

Another footfall, behind him this time. He turned again. Then something struck him from behind and he fell.

Hot blood was on his face, blurring his vision. Something was yanking on his neck, and there was snow in his shirt. As his vision cleared he realized he was being pulled by his cloak. A huge cat, striped, had the fabric in its teeth and was dragging him bodily up the mountainside.

The knife had fallen from his grasp. Curse his idiot three-fingered hand.

“Help!” he screamed “Asha!” but the wind whipped the sound away from him. He tried to strike at the shadowcat, it batted his hand away with a massive paw. He yelped, recoiled.

Inspiration struck him, and he worked at the fastenings of his cloak. But his hand was clumsy, in pain, his fingers too cold. He fumbled, and the cat let go of his cloak anyway. Instead it sunk its teeth into his shoulder.

Theon gasped in pain, and could do no more.

It pulled him up, and away into the white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The official cause of death of King Balon Greyjoy was a failure of the heart in his sleep. Though all who saw him the previous day report that the King of Salt and Rock had appeared in good health. At dawn, one day hence, as the Lord Reaper's body was committed to the deep, Silence was sighted on the southerly horizon, and Euron Greyjoy returned to Pyke.
> 
> -Exerpt from the notes of Maester Wendamyr on Pyke


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introducing some OCs in this chapter, I hope you like them as much as I came to! Apologies for taking so long in the posting. Two job changes and general life chaos has made writing difficult the past few months but this story is not abandoned and I hope to get back to publishing more regularly.

He could smell the cat, it was still close, just up the rise, fleeing with Theon Greyjoy. The prince was still alive, screaming and fighting. The other man that had been outside the cave was not so lucky, he was dead and cooling.

Theon’s hot blood and desperate shouts carried on the air. But the snow and wind scattered them and the cat’s scent all across the valley, impossible to track in the middle of a blizzard. He could scarcely even smell the bear anymore either. The other men crowded by the cave mouth. Asha Greyjoy shouted after her brother. Lady Catelyn kept close by him, her fingers laced deep in his fur while she argue with Mance Rayder.

She couldn't help him.

He’d run to her first, when he failed to stop the bear, but she could not help him.

He shook her hand off, tore away from her and tried to climb the steep cliff the shadowcat had escaped up. His shoulder bled freely from where it had clawed him, and his ribs ached where the bear had smacked him aside, but he had to get up the rock face. If he followed the cat he would find the bear. He leapt, scrabbled, tried to will his claws to catch on the stone, to carry him upward, but the icy wind blew in his face and his paws slipped. He fell.

* * *

Ghost wavered and then guttered out like a candle. Jon’s mind was abruptly back in his head, which was dangling from his body. Which was dangling— dangling from something.

He opened his eyes and saw only darkness, stone, and swirling snow. His head hurt, he could not make sense of what he was seeing.

He blinked, there was a sickening shift in perspective, and he realized what he was looking at. It was a sheer drop of hundreds of feet into the empty night. His body jostled and swung, there was hot, rancid air blowing on his face and huge teeth digging into his shoulder, back, belly and chest.

The bear.

The bear had grabbed him in its jaws. He remembered now. His last thought had been, _Gods,_ _it’s going to eat me alive_ , and _I’ve failed Bran_. Panic and vertigo seized him. He thrashed, kicking his feet, heedless of the deadly fall that awaited him if he got loose, his hands fumbled for his belt, but he could not reach his knife.

A short, sharp shake of its head was all that the beast had to do to still him. His head snapped on the end of his neck like a whip, his vision blurred and he almost vomited.

He hung there for a moment, staring down at the shadowed bottom of the cliff, thinking of a dog killing a rat. He’d seen it dozens of times, there were always rats around the kennels and the stables. It was a simple thing for one of the hounds to snap one up and shake it til its neck broke. He’d never wondered what the rodents felt like, but it was probably something like this.

The bear seemed content that he would not struggle anymore, and continued. One great white paw found purchase on the rock only inches from Jon’s face. His head pounded and his ears rang, it must have knocked him unconscious when it had struck him from behind. He was lucky to be alive.

One tooth that felt as long as a dagger shifted against leather, creaking. It was not buried in his flesh, he realized. None of them were. He should be gored, bleeding from a dozen wounds, but he wasn’t. He was, absurdly, unhurt for the most part. It had not savaged or devoured him as he’d feared. Instead, hooked its teeth into the fastenings and thick leather of his cuirass, lifting him by his armor and clothes, The worst hurt he’d suffered was the blow to the head. The bear was almost gentle in how it handled him as it climbed.

It lumbered up, and up, scaling a rock face that even the most sure footed of goats would have balked at, the driven snow was a whiteout all around them, but the bear kept doggedly on. Its breath was hot and foul. Jon could do little but breathe it, and pray that it did not drop him. He swung back and forth as its weight shifted with each step. He could tell he was a heavy burden for it. Even if it was monstrously huge, it had to keep yanking its head up to carry the weight of a full grown man. His feet bounced off the rock face. He’d lost one bear-paw in the scuffle outside the cave, and the other hung in broken pieces from the straps tying it to his boot. More than once his knee smashed painfully into the rock, but his head never dashed against it, and the bear’s jaws never crunched down on the fragile cage of his ribs.

“Ghost,” he moaned.

The wolf was hurt, but alive. There had been a shadowcat too, that’s what Jon had drawn his sword against when it had killed the other guardsman, and turned its claws on Ghost, which had allowed the bear to surprise him from behind. Jon had never known animals to behave like that, like they’d worked it out beforehand. Even the bizarre pack of cats they’d fought in the Hornwood had not been _organized_.

Come to think of it, he had never known a bear to carry off live prey.

 _Do you know what a warg is?_  Mance had asked him.

Wargs were not real though. He knew they weren’t, he told himself that every time he woke with the feeling of paws in snow fresh and sharp in his fingertips. Whenever he went running at night with Summer in the Wolfswood, he woke and reminded himself that wargs were not real.

It was an ice bear, he was sure, huge, and terrifying. Where Ghost was stark white, icy and clean like a snowdrift. The bear’s fur had a oily yellow shine to it, and emanated a thick, musky smell.

They cleared the top of the cliff, and continued on, across snowfields and rocky slopes. His toes dragged in the snow between its front paws. Several times he found himself blinking back awake, losing seconds, or perhaps minutes. Maybe it was hours. Sometime between moments of consciousness, he lost the remnants of his second bear-paw. How far was the beast taking him?

Jon dimly remembered that ice bears were not much larger than their warm weather cousins. He’d slain a bear once, when he was younger, and stupider, and half trying to get himself killed. It had seemed monstrous to him then. But that had been an ordinary brown bear of the Wolfswood, and it was nothing but a threadbare skin for Summer to nap on in Bran’s solar now. This one made it seem only a cub by comparison it was so massive.

After an unending, unknowable stretch of time climbing in the dark and the snow, the bear suddenly stopped at the base of a rock face that looked no different than any other, and dropped him unceremoniously in a heap. Jon lay insensible for a moment, face in the cold wet snow, head spinning. Was this it? Was it going to eat him now?

He reached for his belt, groping for the knife he knew was still there, but his fingers never reached its hilt. A foot landed squarely between his shoulder blades, and something cold and sharp touched his neck.

He froze. It was a human foot pinning him down, and a stone spearhead at his throat.

“Don’t move, kneeler,” a rough male voice snarled with an accent of the free folk. The spear dug into his skin.

Someone else scoffed, a woman’s voice. “He’s no kneeler. He’s the one they kneel to.”

“Get his hands. He’s got a knife,” said a the first man again.

Jon didn’t dare move, even to see who else had spoken. The stone blade drew a drop of blood. He felt it run hot down his chin and drip, steaming, into the snow. All he could see was his own hair in his eyes.

Footsteps approached, and someone grabbed his wrists, planting a knee on the small of his back and tying them with cord before leaving him. His ribs ached from the bear’s teeth, and he felt sicker than ever, but with effort, he managed to flop gracelessly onto his side to get a look at his captors.

They were ragged people in ragged clothes, two of them, standing in the mouth of a hidden crack in the mountain. One had the spear, and the other was turning Jon’s dagger over in her hands.

“Into the tent,” she said.

 

* * *

 

Jon was trying to be inconspicuous about working loose the cord binding his wrists, but his head felt like it was full of wool, and even if he'd had his wits about him, the one who had stolen his knife – Bugeater, the man with the spear had named her. Jon could guess where she’d gotten the name, but hoped he had guessed wrong – was sitting far too close for comfort, studying him with big unnerving eyes.

She grabbed his chin and turned his face this way and that in the dim light, as though she might find something she’d missed the last few times she’d done it. Jon didn’t resist. She still had his knife in her other hand.

“You sure it’s him?” she said past him, to where the man with the spear sat, “don’t look like a king to me.”

Jon did not much like the look of her either. She might have been any age from five and twenty to as old as fifty, so dirty was her face and strange her bearing. She crouched, skinny knees folded up by her shoulders, never sitting. The firelight made her even stranger, almost monstrous. All around, the shadows seemed alive with flickering shapes.

“What’s a king look like?” the man behind him said, less than interested in this line of questioning, and more in poking the sullen fire with the butt end of his spear.

Jon's hands were tied behind his back, around the log that supported the shabby pelt which served as the roof of their tent. It was wedged in a crack in the mountainside, with nothing but the hide keeping the storm off of their little camp. A weak, damp fire smoldered further back in the crevasse, the man with the spear tended it, and beside him a third wildling snoozed in a pile of rags and furs. What heat the flames gave off only thawed the ice above them, sending rivulets of frigid snowmelt trickling down to soak the seats of all of their trousers.

“What’s that smell?” Jon mumbled. He knew he’d smelled it before, or Ghost had, but he could not put a name to it. Acrid and chemical, it emanated from out of the darkness beyond the fire, deeper in the mountain. He couldn’t focus through the persistent, high, wavering ring in his ears to try to recall.

Nobody seemed to hear his question. Perhaps he had not spoken it aloud at all. Bugeater turned his face the other way, her fingers hard and surprisingly warm on his cheek. She studied his profile.

“He doesn’t have a crown,” she muttered “I thought kneeler kings had crowns.”

His head ached fit to bursting, and he wanted nothing more than to sleep.

Once, Ser Rodrik had told him that sleep was the best thing for it, if you got your bell rung in a tilt. He remembered one of the grooms had caught a horse’s hoof in the side of the head one time. The man had never quite stopped having headaches, even years on. Jon hoped he didn’t always have headaches like this one. He thought he might go mad if he did.

Perhaps he _was_  going mad. He swore a living shadow brushed his cheek as it fluttered by. Could getting knocked senseless by a bear make you go mad?  

“The Mance has got no crown neither,” the man grumbled. “Don’t mean he’s not a king.”

“Mance is different.” Bugeater righted Jon’s face again and looked at him head on,  “Mance were a crow, and then one o’ us, we all decided to follow him south. Nobody kneels to the Mance. ‘S just,” she chewed the inside of her cheek. “This one don’t look like someone gets kneeled to, neither.”

“You did the scouting.” the spear crunched into the smoldering twigs as the man punctuated each statement with a jab into the cinders. “You said the king was a warg. You said the king was a Stark. You said he’d be a skinchanger with a direwolf. _I_ didn’t see many others looked like Benjen Stark and pranced around with a wolf the size of an aurochs.”

That pricked Jon’s ears up. Benjen had been gone more than five years, vanished beyond the wall even before Robb had ridden south. His heart lurched. It couldn’t be true that Benjen had turned his cloak and deserted, but how else would two odd wildlings know his face?

“You’ve seen my uncle?” he asked, or tried to ask, but Bugeater silenced him by squeezing his cheeks, pouting his lips.

“Ben Stark?” She kept talking as though he had said nothing at all. “He’s dead. You’ve never seen Ben Stark.”

A dismayed sound made it out of Jon’s mouth despite his and bugeater’s efforts both.

“I saw him. I did. Four years ago, at the Fist.” The spear crunched, the fire flickered.

“No one’s seen him since the old bear died. He’s been dead five years for sure.” There was cold certainty in Bugeater’s voice.

A lance of guilt stabbed Jon in the ribs, between the bruises. It had been when his father had left with the girls that Jon had last seen his uncle. His father’s face came unbidden to his mind, _stay,_ he’d said, _I need you here and safe with your brothers._ But it was Robb’s voice he heard,  _I need you here, to keep our brothers safe._ He couldn’t help but think that if he _had_  gone north, there might have been something he could have done. Jon might have saved him, had he been by his side.

“No. It was after that. I saw Ben Stark at the Fist four years ago,” the man repeated, more agitated than before,  “And this one looks just like him. So don’t ask me if it’s him!”

Jon wondered, as Bugeater scrunched up her nose, and tapped her finger against his cheek, seemingly deep in thought, if the free folk figured years the same as the seven kingdoms did.

“Still. I thought he’d have a crown.”

“Maybe he dropped it.”

That seemed to settle it. She let his face go, satisfied of his kingly nature, and proceeded to sit back on her heels and profane his dagger by picking her jagged teeth with it.

No one else spoke, the fire quietly smoked and crackled as the sap boiled out of the leggy shrubs they were burning. The howling of the wind blended with the squeaking, almost chirping high sound that rang in his ears until his head buzzed with fatigue. He didn’t suppose they’d kill him now, if they thought that he was Bran. A king’s ransom was worth a good deal more than his head.

* * *

His head snapped up again, bleary eyed, confused, heart racing as a shout came from outside the tent. He’d nodded off while sitting up, his chin pillowed on his chest. He was in a cave, in the dark, lady Stark was— lady Stark was in a different cave, a different dark, her scent was gone, pushed out of even his memory by the overwhelming chemical reek surrounding him awake.

How long had he been asleep? It was still dark out, but dawn came late so deep in winter. All the world was a grey gloaming. The thick snow diffused the light, it might have been well after sunrise for all he could tell.

Jon cast around for his captors and found Bugeater apparently asleep, still crouching on her heels off to the side of the remains of the fire.

Quickly, he set to working his wrists back and forth, trying to loosen the knot, but whatever they had bound him with was stronger than shoestring and would not stretch or snap, struggle as he might. His arms were sore and stiff from being bound all night behind him, and soon his skin was chafed raw with the rubbing, but now might be the only chance he was like to get.

Outside, he spied the man with the spear as he came into view. He was brandishing the weapon at a Shadowcat. The cat was dragging a corpse.

It heaved its prize forward, dropping it at the man’s feet. The body flopped, ragdoll limp, face down into the snow. It was a man, he saw, straight black hair fanned out around his head.

Jon worked a finger under the cord, twisting, scraping painfully against his skin, it was slick now with his blood. A glance back told him that Bugeater was still asleep. Her eyes were closed at least, and she had not made any motion. He looked back out to the commotion in the snow.

Dawn was definitely drawing near, for he saw very clearly what happened next. The man’s shoulders relaxed, and he lowered the point of his spear. He made to nudge the corpse with his toe. Then, quick as a snake, the dead man’s hand shot out, grabbed the shaft of the spear, and yanked the wildling off balance. He teetered, one foot too deep in the snow to stop his stumble, and fell. The dead man was on him in an instant, and did not hesitate to spin the spear around and drive the head hard and fast down into his throat. There was no scream, though the wildling twitched and writhed as blood pulsed out of him into the snow. Jon was too distant to hear his choking gurgles as he died.

He saw face of the man he’d thought was dead then, as he whirled to keep the shadowcat at bay. It was prince Theon Greyjoy. Jon would have known him anywhere, even with his nose all bruises and blood dried down half his face from a cut on his forehead.

Jon worked furiously, heedless of the pain, or the blood running down his fingers, his arms screamed with the effort, his breath coming ragged.

The cat and prince were at an impasse. He stood over the corpse of the wildling, and the cat circled. It could not get within the reach of the spear with its claws, but he could not attack without exposing himself to a pounce.

The stalemate came to a quick resolution when, in a great surging torrent, all the little, fluttering, stinking shadows in the world erupted suddenly out of the depths of the cave.

They billowed out from behind him in a rush, so fast that the wind from their passing blew his hair into his eyes again.

Squeaking, flapping, they circled Greyjoy in a vortex. Jon gaped, his bonds forgotten. The whirlwind spun. For a moment time itself stilled, each individual black thing was suspended as they all wheeled as one, turning like a flock of starlings. To Jon’s baffled eye, they seemed to form the spire of some ghostly castle in the air, and at its base, Theon, also frozen with surprise. Then the turning pillar collapsed in on the prince, time resumed and they pelted him from all sides. He was almost blocked from view they were so numerous.

Bats, Jon realized, dumbstruck. They were bats. That was the smell, and the sound.

Jon caught one more glimpse of Theon, flailing the spear like a warhammer and stumbling, before the shadowcat took the opportunity to pounce and knock him to the ground.

Jon heard him cursing and yelling. Not dead then, but he didn’t watch to see how he fared against the cat, which surely weighed almost as much as he did. Jon’s window of opportunity was swiftly drawing to a close, he knew it had to be then, or never. He grit his teeth and twisted his hand viciously against the cord. It bit deep into the skin where his palm met his wrist, but this time it slipped over the joint of his thumb, and his left hand was free.  

“No!” A wail came from behind him “Stupid stupid stupid!” Bugeater shrieked.

Jon froze, but she was not paying any attention to him or what he was doing with his hands. Still wailing, she ran right by him and up to the cat and the Ironborn prince, where she kicked him solidly in the ribs. Even Jon heard the yelp he let out.

The cat did nothing to stop her, but sedately kept a big paw planted on Theon’s back. It looked up at her with impassive blue eyes. Around them, the cloud of bats broke formation and dissolved into a loose chaotic mass, flying with no direction or intention to their movements.

“Stupid!” Bugeater yowled again, planting another kick in Theon’s side. “Nobody else could take the bear!”

The bats made their confused way back into the cave. They streamed past more slowly, some still fluttered around Bugeater and Theon while she bound his wrists as she had Jon’s. A few even blundered right into Jon, bouncing off to straggle away into the dark.

One plinked off his chest and fell into his lap. He blinked down at it. If an ugly little creature with black eyes and a flared nose could look sleepy and confused, this one did. Jon was so intent on watching it clamber up his leg to take off from his knee, he almost jumped out of his skin when someone rested a hand lightly on his shoulder as they brushed past him.  

Hells, he’d completely forgotten about the third wildling. She met Bugeater, who was dragging a still cursing and spitting Theon Greyjoy with her, matching him curse for curse, by the entrance.

The shadowcat followed, and settled demurely onto the damp floor.

“Oughtta slit ‘im here and now for doing Larch,” Bugeater was snarling.

“Don’t be a fool, he’s more valuable alive.”  The other woman was calm. “We’ve lost Larch and his bear, but we’ve got two kings. I say we came out ahead.”

Greyjoy squirmed and writhed on the damp floor. Bugeater made to kick him again, but the other caught her shoulder, moving between the two and blocking Jon's view of the prince.

"Think of the ransom, Bug. Anything we ask of them! The wolf and kraken both. Mance won't dare deny us our rights with both kingdoms begging for their lieges back. They'll string him up  _for_ us if he tries."

"Pretty squid king's worth just as much without his teeth." Bugeater's voice was vicious and petulant, but she allowed herself to be pulled away. Past her bony knee, as she stepped back, Jon's eyes met Theon's, who had rolled onto his shoulder and was peering into the depths of the cave with pain and confusion on his face, then surprise when he recognized Jon. 

Jon sent a silent prayer to the old gods, and a desperate one to Theon not to call out his name. 

Greyjoy was a bloody mess. His eyes were both blackened, a score of tiny cuts littered his face, and his hair was plastered in the blood. But even still, his features were as familiar as breathing when they broke into a grin. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As there are bulls and aurochs, and wolves and direwolves, so also are there bears and great bears. Though once they could be found in many mountain fastnesses, ranging everywhere north of the Wall, and as far south as the mountains extend toward the Neck, it has long been suspected that these massive brutes are consigned to the same fate as the giants. However, rumors have reached the ears of rangers from the mouths of wildlings far to the north of great ice bears.
> 
> What credence these stories may possess is as questionable as any tale ever told by savages of the fantastical creatures that may be found in their vast unfriendly lands, but bears have been spotted from afar on ocean pack ice that would seem to dwarf the ice bears that may be found roaming in the relatively familiar lands below the frostfangs.
> 
> -Excerpt from the unfinished draft of ‘Beasts Beyond The Wall’, by maester Gartt, formerly of Eastwach-by-the-sea


End file.
